You may be looking at the final inclusion on that list and thinking it’s a tad out of place. So did I, to be honest, but that was before my 10-year-old son, his grandad and I turned up at Station Park on Saturday afternoon.

Hands up, I was badgered into it by my boy. We were up at the in-laws (mine, not his) who live just outside Arbroath and my football-mad son Sam wanted to go to a game. And not just any game.

Forfar Athletic's Station Park (Image: SNS)

“Dad, we’ve been to Hampden, Ibrox and Celtic Park, but I want to go to a small game and see what it’s like.”

Read More

Small game. His words, not mine, but when I told him Forfar were taking on Arbroath in a top of League Two clash, that was the cue for a weekend of whining until I caved in.

So, off we went and you know what, I really should get out more often. In fact, most football writers who spend the vast majority of their time in the press boxes of the Premiership should.

It was great. Not the quality of the football, it would be pushing it to suggest otherwise. Forfar’s plastic pitch might be easy on the eye but Messi and Ronaldo would have struggled to control a ball that bounced as high enough to scatter the seagulls as they glided overhead. So two teams of hard working but limited part-timers were never going to produce a classico.

But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t great entertainment or brilliant value for the £24 it cost us (£12 for me and two £6 concessions for the auld yin and the young yin).

Sam couldn't wait to go to the match (Image: David McCarthy)

We wandered up at five to three thinking we’d just breeze through the turnstiles. Wrong. The queue wasn’t snaking into the distance but it was sizeable and when we finally clunked through the barrier and made it onto the terracing behind the goal, it was busy - at least until the Arbroath support realised their team would be shooting into the goal at the far end, so en masse they walked all the way round the ground.

We pondered but stayed put. As Sam put it: ‘Arbroath will be shooting up this end in the second half, so what’s the point of moving?’

That meant we were among the Forfar fans, listening to such subtleties as ‘Get intae they Smokie C****’. Well, it was a derby after all, so what do you expect? But I’ll never eat an Arbroath Smokie again.

And maybe not a Forfar Bridie either. Not after Sam decided two bites into his that he didn’t like it. So I had to finish it, after I’d finished my own. So not only did I have sunburn (it was a glorious day) but heartburn to match it.

Read More

Anyway, a crowd of more than 1500 - more than watched Hamilton-Ross County in the top flight - watched two sets of players give everything they had.

I walked away having enjoyed a great day with my son and father-in-law, reviving memories of going to countless matches with my own dad as a kid, leaning on the barriers and just enjoying it for what it was; a day at the football.

The Scottish game has its critics and people use attendances as a stick to beat it over the head, while ignoring the fact that per head of population more of us attend a match than just about anywhere else in Europe.

Sam tucked into his snack... but not for long (Image: David McCarthy)

We love the game, pure and simple. And we love our teams.

Are there too many senior teams in Scottish football? Probably. But I don’t see how we can just kill off some of them as the critics would do.

You look at the neck of the woods I was in at the weekend. Arbroath, Forfar, Montrose and Brechin are all within half an hour’s drive of each other and the bean counters would say that an area of that size should have only a couple of clubs, maximum.

Well, try telling that to the 1500 I stood with on Saturday. Or the fans of Montrose and Brechin.

There might not be as many of them, but I was reminded at the weekend that each and every one of them is as committed to their club as the supporters of the big boys are to theirs.

It would be criminal to take their clubs away from them and I for one hope it never happens.